Abramovich 'buys �60m paintings'

Sue Tilley posed for Freud over a four-year period in the early 1990s

Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Abramovich bought two paintings that were sold at record-breaking auctions last week, according to reports.

Lucian Freud's Benefits Supervisor Sleeping sold for �17.2m on Tuesday, followed by Francis Bacon's Triptych, which fetched �43m just 24 hours later.

The Art Newspaper quoted sources saying the London-based Russian billionaire was the buyer of both paintings.

A spokesman for Mr Abramovich declined to comment.

He said: "We don't get into personal matters."

The life-sized Freud painting of a sleeping, naked woman, titled Benefits Supervisor Sleeping, sold for $33.6m (�17.2m) at Christie's in New York.

ART V FOOTBALL - HOW PLAYERS COMPARE Andriy Shevchenko - �30m Didier Drogba (pictured) - �24m Shaun Wright-Phillips - �21m Jose Bosingwa - �16.2m Nicolas Anelka - �15m All values are estimates

Christie's described the work, which shows Jobcentre supervisor Sue Tilley asleep on a sofa, as a "bold and imposing example of the stark power of Freud's realism".

It set a new world record price for a work by a living artist.

The following day, Sotheby's sold Bacon's Triptych (1976) for $86.3m (�43m) - the most ever spent on a work by the Irish-born artist - also in New York.

The three panelled picture depicts a headless human form surrounded by three vultures and flanked by two portraits of disfigured human faces.

Meanwhile, two more paintings by Freud and Bacon are expected to fetch more than �25m when they come up for auction next month.

Freud's Naked Portrait with Reflection (1980) shows a nude model spread out on a tattered sofa and is estimated to fetch up to �15m at Christie's.

Bacon's Three Studies for a Self Portrait is expected to fetch more than �10m at the same Christie's Post War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale on 30 June.

E-mail this to a friend

Printable version